Imaginary Enemy (20 page)

Setting the Stage

“H
ow was the dance, Jane?” Mom asked at breakfast.

“Fine.” I rubbed my head. My hair, freshly shampooed, still held a hint of blue spray.

“Did Sharp have fun?”

“I guess.”

“Well, was it a date, or just friends, or what?”

“Mom,” I said in a bored voice, but my heart was thumping wildly.

She winked at Dad across the table. “That must mean it was a date.”

“Sharp must have horrible taste,” said Zander. “He must be desperate.”

“What would you know, Lysander?” I retorted.

“I can’t believe
you
wore that awesome dress. You’re usually so…normal.”

“Ugh!” I said, leaving the table. Once again, Zander calling me normal felt like an insult.

“Harmony told me Sharp went off with Elliot early this morning. They went to record waves on the beach,” Carmella said.

“Really?” I answered with feigned disinterest.

“Yep. Sharp loves those recording adventures as much as Elliot does. He even plans some of them.”

“Figures…. What about Chord?”

“What about him?”

“Did he go with them?”

“No.”

“So what’s he doing?”

Carmella looked at me quizzically. “I’m not sure…. Hanging around the house, I guess. Why?”

“No reason.” I smiled secretively.

“What’s the deal with you and Chord?” she asked with a hint of disgust in her voice.

“Nothing,” I replied smugly. “I can’t imagine what you’re talking about.”

Chord and I met on the deMichaels’ porch. We sat beside each other on the steps, and he threw his arm around my shoulders. We talked quietly and I rested my hand on his knee. He reached over and stroked my hair. When I got up to leave, he pulled me to himself and kissed my face.

I listened for the sound of Elliot’s van. Midafternoon, he and Sharp pulled into the driveway. I watched from the porch as Sharp unloaded recording equipment. He carried an armload of speakers and wires to the garage. Then another. And another. He finally closed the van doors and crossed the yard.

“Hi, Jane.” He looked shy and tenative.

“Hi. How’s it going?”

“Okay. Want to go for a walk?”

“Sure.”

“Hey, Sharp, do you know what you’re getting yourself into?” Zander called from the doorway. “She’s poison!”

Sharp laughed. “I’ll take my chances.”

“This is awkward,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“Both of our families are on alert—watching everything we do—speculating.”

Sharp grinned. “Yeah, I know. All day Elliot kept fishing about last night. Asking all kinds of questions.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“I dunno. That I had a good time. That I liked being with you.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. What’d you tell your family?”

“I was evasive.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It’s just weird. You’re like…Sharp. Like the boy next door.”

“I am the boy next door.”

“I know. That’s why it’s weird.”

“Raphael called me this morning,” Emma said when I answered the phone.

“Oh, yeah. Why?”

“He wanted the dirt on Sharp.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“Not much. I don’t know much.”

“Did he roll the
R
in Sharp?”

“Actually, I think he did.”

“Figures. At least he’s consistent. He can roll his
R
s til he’s lead dog in the nursing home and I wouldn’t care.”

Emma laughed.

“I can’t believe I thought it was sexy. It’s fake, anyhow. He took Spanish One in ninth grade and thinks he’s Antonio Banderas.”

“Jane, you crack me up. So is your new look a one-time thing, or a lifestyle?”

“Neither. From now on, I’ll just follow my whims. No point in swapping one label for another.”

“What label?”

“
Normal.
Just ask Zander.”

“Jane. I’d never have labeled you normal,” she said.

“Remember when you said I wasn’t a real slacker?”

“Did I say that?’

“Yeah. Freshman year. Well, I’ve decided you’re right. I’m not a slacker. I’m simply very efficient.”

“Efficient?”

“Right. I don’t waste my time on unprofitable efforts. Like school. I conserve my energy for more worthwhile pursuits.”

“Hmmm…I think maybe
slacker
was the right term after all, Jane.”

“Bye, Emma. Chord’s at the door.”

“Chord?”

“Yeah. Long story. I’ll update you later. Bye.”

Chord waited until Carmella and Harmony left the room. Then he grabbed my arm. “Sharp isn’t suspicious, is he?” he asked.

“Shhh. Don’t talk so loud.”

“Well, is he?”

“Shhh. I don’t think so.”

Chord took my hands in his. “I don’t want him to get hurt. Regardless of you and me, he’s my brother.”

“I know. This is difficult.”

“What are we going to do?” He pulled me against him and pressed his lips to my neck. I felt the warmth of his breath on my flesh and couldn’t come up with an answer.

Blind Date

I
’d been uncertain what to wear to meet Bubba. I wondered what he was expecting. Glamour and glitz? Leather and lace? Business casual? Punked out? Denim? Waffle House uniform?

Because whatever Bubba wanted was just the way I
didn’t
want to dress. I wasn’t the sort of girl who dressed to please an imaginary enemy. So I settled on my favorite worn-out pair of jeans, my Marvin the Martian T-shirt, and my running shoes. Just in case I needed to make a break for it.

I walked into the library, glancing around. I spied no one familiar on the ground floor. A man walked by pushing a cart of books. “Where’s nonfiction? The one hundreds in the Dewey decimal system?” I asked.

“Third floor,” he replied, and gestured toward the stairs. “Or you can ride the elevator.”

I climbed the stairs and looked around. I hadn’t spent much time in libraries. I pulled Bubba’s letter from my pocket. What in the world was the Dewey decimal system? I vaguely remembered my third-grade teacher talking about it. Was it some way of converting percentages into fractions? No. It had something to do with those numbers on the spines of library books, but I wasn’t sure what. Did Bubba think I was a librarian or something? I didn’t even have a library card.

“Where are the one hundreds?” I whispered to the lady behind the desk.

“Over there. That entire section.”

“Thanks.” I walked to the area she’d indicated and followed the aisle to the large plate-glass windows. Six tables were lined up, all occupied. I rechecked Bubba’s letter. He hadn’t specified which table. I stepped back into the narrow aisle between the stacks to evaluate the crop of potential Bubbas. At the first table sat three people who looked like college students. They were comparing notes and drawing diagrams. Next was a frazzled mother with twins sleeping in a stroller. There were several parenting books spread out on the table. At the third sat a woman around my mother’s age typing on a laptop. The fourth was inhabited by two preteenage boys giggling at paintings of naked women in art books. One of them saw me and blushed. At the fifth, a guy in a sloppy hat and tattered jacket sat facing the window. I wondered if he was a homeless person seeking refuge from the world outside. At the final table sat a couple who should have been in the anatomy section, judging by their behavior.

I reasoned that if Bubba was there, he had to be either the laptop woman or the sloppy hat guy. He’d said nothing about bringing along friends, and the other tables were all occupied by more than one person. I stood between two rows of bookshelves, unsure. The laptop woman looked up and smiled.

“Excuse me, are you meeting someone here?” I asked her.

“No, dear.”

“Sorry.”

I looked at the sloppy hat guy. The set of his shoulders seemed familiar. I stepped toward him. He was idly flipping through the pages of a book about volcanoes. “Excuse me,” I said, standing behind him. My heart was beating rapidly.

He closed the book, turned, and removed his hat. “Gabriel, you came. I was afraid you might chicken out,” he said, his smile bright and open. “I’m Bubba.” He extended his hand, and like a fool I shook it.

“You?” I was confused, embarrassed, shocked. And, I’ll admit, angry.

“Me.”

“But…?”

“Who were you expecting?”

“I…um…well, I didn’t know who…but I never thought…What are
you
doing here?”

“Meeting you face to face, just like I proposed in the letter.”

“What?” I was rattled, trying to merge the person before me with the Bubba I’d corresponded with since childhood. “Nice disguise,” I said sarcastically.

“I thought you’d like it.”

“I was lying. It sucks.” I folded my arms over my chest. “Well?”

“Let me explain,” he said somewhat formally, like this was a business meeting.

“That might be a good plan.”

I thought back to when I was little—to the time I got my first kiss, the one Sharp planted on my cheek while Chord ridiculed us with taunts about love. I remembered how I had repeatedly rubbed my face, but that darned kiss just wouldn’t disappear. I had wiped it with my fingers and dabbed at it with my shirt and scrubbed it with a soapy washcloth, but it had remained plastered to my cheek. For all I knew it was still there, staining my flesh with its invisible tattoo.

That was how I felt standing in the psychology section of the library facing Bubba for the first time. Except instead of a kiss, it was a slap, and nothing could take away the sting.

“Well, start explaining,” I said, sitting across the table from him. There was not a hint of warmth in my voice or a spark of welcome in my eyes.

“Keep your voice down, Gabriel. This
is
a library, you know.”

I realized I had spoken rather loudly. “Fine. Start explaining,” I hissed in a dramatic whisper. Then I added, “Bubba,” with a sneer as I leaned back and crossed my arms.

“You’re angry.”

“Well, duh.” I spoke louder than I had intended. A few heads turned to look in our direction.

“Maybe we should go to the courtyard. We’re disturbing people.”

“Don’t you mean
I’m
disturbing people? Isn’t that what you mean?” I said, my voice rising a pitch with each word.

“Come on,” he said.

He walked around the table toward me and reached for my chair. I sprang from my seat. “I don’t need your help,
Bubba.
”

I whirled past him and stomped down the stairs, leaving him in my wake. At the back of my mind the strangest thing was happening. I was wondering what numbers the Dewey decimal system assigned to cookbooks. Were there many cookbooks in the library, and did they get checked out often? Maybe food splatter stains embellished their pages. Did they include nutritional facts and calorie counts? Could I find a profitable new dish to prepare for the next fishing tournament? Whoa, I told myself. I think you’ve lost your mind—truly slipped into the twilight zone between sanity and madness.

“Are you okay?” Bubba asked when I reached the landing. I snapped back to reality.

“Define
okay,
” I replied acidly.

We sat at a small table in the corner of the courtyard. “Jane—”

“Don’t you mean Gabriel, Bubba?” I shifted so that I was sitting sideways, turning my head to glare at him over my right shoulder. I crossed my arms and smirked with false casualness.

“Okay then, Gabriel…this is what happened.” He paused, as if he wasn’t sure where to start.

I jumped in. “I can’t wait to hear, and it better be good.”

His eyes met mine, making my heart lurch. “Remember the day you asked me to the dance?”

“Yes, Sharp…I mean
Bubba
…yes, Bubba, I remember. We all have our moments of desperation. What does that have to do with this?”

“You stacked your books with my sheet music on top of my saxophone case. Remember?”

“Not really. Not exactly the highlight of my life, you know…where I put my school stuff. Slackers like me don’t concern ourselves with such trivialities.”

“Well, your stuff was piled with mine, and when you picked it up you left your folder with my music books.”

“Crime of the century? Big deal. Call in the National Guard.”

“It wasn’t a crime,” he said softly, as if my sarcasm offended him. “Just a forgotten folder.”

“So?”

“I didn’t realize it was there. I wasn’t exactly thinking about folders. I was thinking about going out with you. Excited about going out with you. I’ve always liked you—ever since I can remember.” I rolled my eyes just like Demonseed rolls his
R
s. Sharp looked away, then back at me. “Later that night, when I went to practice my pieces, I saw it there—that blue folder. And it had ‘Bubba, Letters to my Imaginary Enemy’ written on the front. I thought it was Chord’s. Maybe some assignment for his creative writing class. I opened it and started reading those letters. That’s when I knew it was actually your folder. Your letters.”

“Which you kept reading?” I accused him. “You’re worse than Carmella and Harmony.”

“I did keep reading. Wouldn’t you have? I
know
you would.”

“Maybe,” I admitted grudgingly.

“Anyway, I thought it was really cool that you’d written all those Bubba letters over the years. I liked the way your handwriting matured, and your rages, too. And then I thought about how you always called my family weird, because of Elliot’s projects and stuff, and I was glad you were kind of weird, too.”

“
You’re
calling
me
weird?”

“Well, it is a bit weird, Jane. Having an imaginary enemy. Writing letters to him.”

I tossed my head. “Oh, and who are you to judge?”

“That’s what you don’t get—I’m not judging.” His voice was quiet, almost as if he was talking to himself. He leaned closer to me. “I liked it. It made me more attracted to you than ever. Like you weren’t the conventional girl you pretended to be. That’s why I was so turned on by what you wore to the dance. It exposed the artist in you.”

“Artist? I’m no artist.”

“In the broad sense of the word you are.”

“Whatever. You still shouldn’t have read my letters.”

“I couldn’t
not
read them, Jane. But here’s the odd thing: I was jealous of Bubba.”

I became aware of his hands on the tabletop, fidgeting nervously. “How could you be jealous of Bubba?” I asked incredulously. “He doesn’t exist!”

“But in a way he does. As much as any other intangible.”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” I said in exasperation.

He continued. “So I went next door—you weren’t home. I hung out with Zander and Jazz, and snuck into your room to stash your folder back with your stuff—”

I turned to face him squarely, my eyes aflame. I expected him to flinch, but he didn’t. “What? You snooped around my room?”

“No. I didn’t snoop. Just put your letters on a pile of stuff. Then last week, I did it again. It was easy. Your folder was sitting on your bed with your French book. So I read the new letters you’d written to Bubba and planned this meeting.”

“You make rank amateurs of our snoopy little sisters. You invaded my privacy.”

At least he had the grace to look ashamed. “I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I was intrigued. It didn’t seem so awful at the time.”

“All that still doesn’t explain what you’re doing here dressed in some funky coat pretending to be my imaginary enemy.”

Sharp inhaled. “Remember how Harmony and Carmella told me you only asked me out to get back at your boyfriend? I wrote those Bubba letters to you to…I don’t know why…to get your attention, I guess. And share a secret with you. But then, at the dance, it was so nice being with you, and you said you liked being with me, and I wasn’t sure what to do. But I’d already asked you to meet me, so here we are.”

I raised one eyebrow a bit, wishing I could knock him down a few pegs by doing a full-fledged Mrs. Perkins.

He reached across the table, grabbed my hand, and looked into my eyes. “Is it really so bad? What I did? Didn’t you kind of like it? The mystery? The magic? The risk?”

“You invaded my privacy.”

“Yeah, I did. But by accident. Only because your stuff got mixed up with mine. It’s not like I went digging through your closet or something.”

“That doesn’t excuse it.”

“And I had no evil intent. I wanted to tease you, maybe. Entice you. But that’s it.”

“You conspired against me with my imaginary enemy,” I accused him.

“I wouldn’t really call it a conspiracy, Jane. Bubba’s imaginary. And it’s not like the CIA and Department of Homeland Security were involved.”

We sat in silence. I wasn’t totally mad now that I knew the whole story. It was even rather funny. And Sharp was right—I had enjoyed the mystery, magic, and risk. It wasn’t as if he was ridiculing me for having an imaginary enemy. He liked it—liked me better for it. I sighed. “At least you aren’t an online pervert.”

He smiled and it melted my heart. “Well, Gabriel, do you forgive me?”

At first I didn’t say anything, due to my stubborn streak. “So Bubba,” I finally asked, “do you want to go get a soda?”

“Does that mean we’re okay with each other?”

“Yeah,” I said, smiling. “But from now on, leave my private papers alone, understand?”

“Yeah, I understand.”

“And when I need an enemy, you’ll be on the receiving end. Got it?”

“Got it. But please don’t call me Bubba. Unless you kiss me. Then you can call me anything.”

“Okay, Bubba,” I said mischievously.